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Golden laser?

Golden

Golden

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Aug 13, 2017
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Kind of obsessed with golden color, sodium lamps.

I tried searching Sodium lasers, but the only ones I find are the size of a cow, and attached to the very large telescopes used in astronomy.

Can someone help me understand if there are small ones the size of HeNe laser, do they exist? I absolutely love that wavelength of sodium.


Open to alternatives if they exist.

PS. Why are gas lasers used for holograms and not diode? Or are diode ones used as well?
 





go for dragonlasers. 589nm isnt cheap though, expect >$300 for even 5mw. personally im gonna wait for the prices to come down a little before i invest in a 589
 
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That ^ And the materials needed and optical alignment isn't necessarily easy to accomplish. It's not like you can go and make your own unlike most of the other lasers we have here
 
Golden said:
Kind of obsessed with golden color, sodium lamps.

I tried searching Sodium lasers, but the only ones I find are the size of a cow, and attached to the very large telescopes used in astronomy.

Open to alternatives if they exist.
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I love mine, the beam is to die for.
Love it for astronomy, casts a gorgeous beam, it looks professional, like the ones the pro observatories use as a guide star.

Pro_A2A0967.jpg
 
I love that golden beam. What do we have happening lately, someone creating different member names specific to their question, a HMT or what? :p
 
Yep, Dragon lasers is the best place for 'sodium' yellow. But it won't be a gas laser. It will be solid state instead using a SFG process. In fact DPSS 589 (588.93nm) is actually incredibly close to the sodium wavelength of 589.2nm used in laser guide star systems. But as you have already found out they are not cheap either. But a fraction of the price of a laser guide star I might add. :p Only serious hobbyists and those with applications really buy that wavelength.
 
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Alaskan has been buying up parts to try to make a high power 589 for some time now. He has gotten a lot of great assemblies and 808nm diodes and crystals. Once he retires, I think he will start on making one of these in a power over 1 watt. The pointers at best might peak at 130 mW. Then they decrease in power as the seconds go by.
 
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paul1598419 said:
Alaskan has been buying up parts to try to make a high power 589 for some time now. He has gotten a lot of great assemblies and 808nm diodes and crystals. Once he retires, I think he will start on making one of these in a power over 1 watt. The pointers at best might peak at 130 mW. Then they decrease in power as the seconds go by.
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I've gotten my 589 to 180+ mW under ideal conditions! But your point still stands - high powers 589s are quite a rarity indeed.
 
Sta said:
I've gotten my 589 to 180+ mW under ideal conditions! But your point still stands - high powers 589s are quite a rarity indeed.
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Did it require an hour long ceremony of fire and ice with an 18650 sacrifice? I have a cell that has a high IR that I keep around 3v charged. At around 40 or 50 degF I can get around 2 minutes of 120mw avg. I see three lines in the beam. A fully charged cell is too much. I should check the V drop but you can see what I'm aiming for.
 
CurtisOliver said:
Yep, Dragon lasers is the best place for 'sodium' yellow. But it won't be a gas laser. It will be solid state instead using a SFG process. In fact DPSS 589 (588.93nm) is actually incredibly close to the sodium wavelength of 589.2nm used in laser guide star systems. But as you have already found out they are not cheap either. But a fraction of the price of a laser guide star I might add. :p Only serious hobbyists and those with applications really buy that wavelength.
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The main emission is 588.6nm. it just deviates a bit with temperature. It's used in alot of biomedical florescence and raman spectroscopy, as well as in the laser guide star he notes above, but on the non commercial front, it has virtually no use, so therefore it's quite pricy. No demand = specialty item = high prices due to no volume sales. I have all of the yellow wavelengths available to me, and I gotta say, they're pretty breathtaking. especially 577nm.
 
The wavelength I mentioned was just based on the SHG/SFG equation if the inputs were perfectly at those wavelengths. 1/((1/1064)+(1/1319))= 588.93 (.2dp)
The true WL will differ from that value I agree.
I must say I envy your yellow collection. :p
 
CurtisOliver said:
The wavelength I mentioned was just based on the SHG/SFG equation if the inputs were perfectly at those wavelengths. 1/((1/1064)+(1/1319))= 588.93 (.2dp)
The true WL will differ from that value I agree.
I must say I envy your yellow collection. :p
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Ah. Yes those are rounded values, so that's what thew it off. I'd have to look up the true values, but it comes to ~588.63 or something. Its been a while, and I forget. Temperature of the parts will affect it though, so you almost never get a perfect value.
 
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